


A Door Closes, a Window Opens

by sohydrated



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Anhedonia, Depreskel (depressed Eskel), M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Pre-Relationship, Teen Romance, Trial Of The Grasses (The Witcher), canon-typical child abuse, i think this is my first successful angst you guys, improbable use of witcher signs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:26:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25614292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sohydrated/pseuds/sohydrated
Summary: Geralt and Eskel have always been best friends, one an extension of the other. After Geralt's extra mutations, he isn't the same person. Eskel feels alone. How do they grow?A look into Eskel and Geralt's relationship, before and after Geralt's second round of mutations.For the July prompt in the witcher rarepair server, "open windows"
Relationships: Eskel/Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia
Comments: 19
Kudos: 80
Collections: Witcher Rarepair Discord Collection





	A Door Closes, a Window Opens

**Author's Note:**

> A big thank you to Lynge for their help in making this so much better, and for letting me scream at them about this all the time. 
> 
> The first scenes of this mention Geralt with red hair, as it is before the second TotG and he has not been bleached yet. They are young teens here. CW for non-graphic child abuse.

"There's no fucking way! Not even you could manage that, so why the hell would I try?" Geralt calls from the ground, outside the high window of their room. At about three stories up, he wouldn't even feel comfortable jumping  _ out _ the window. New super healing be damned. 

Eskel, leaning on the sill, just rolled his eyes, partially obscured by his shaggy bangs. 

"How do you think I got up here so fast? And I thought you had mastered aard finally, guess I was wrong." He shrugged, picking at the blunt nails on one hand casually. Geralt fumed, ever the competitor. 

"I  _ have _ mastered aard! Elgas said so!" His chest puffed out as he jutted his thumb into it. Eskel laughed again, watching Geralt from high up, he looked smaller, more like the little redheaded menace that he met nearly a decade ago and less like the warriors they were becoming.

"He's not even the normal signs instructor! What does he know? I bet you don't want to do it 'cause you're  _ scared. _ " He spat the last accusation out with a sneer. Geralt always did need a little nudge to his pride to get fully invested, Eskel thought. And he'd be happy to give that necessary push. 

Geralt practically raised his hackles at the offense, seeming to try and make himself bigger and tougher than he was. 

"That's stupid, we're witchers! We aren't scared of anything!" 

"Oh yeah? Prove it, aard up here, and I'll tell everyone you're better at signs than I am." Eskel had stood up, crossing his arms as he issued the challenge. 

Geralt paused, he didn't want to, was pretty sure it wasn't possible. Still, the potential of having Eskel admit a sort of defeat was alluring. 

"In front of everyone in the dining hall, or no deal." If he was going to do this, he might as well milk it for all it was worth. 

Eskel barked a single laugh, unbothered by the escalation.

"Sure, I'll even write it in mashed potatoes on the floor if it'll make you  _ get on with it. _ " He stepped back from the window, until Geralt couldn't see him anymore from the ground, presumably to give him space should the redhead manage to actually succeed. 

With his bluff called, Geralt frowned, a deep furrow between his pale brows forming as he did some mental calculations. He stepped a few yards back from his original point below the window and began thinking of the proper stance. Perhaps almost a squat, so he can kick off the ground with the blast? But what about if he went too high? No, that wouldn't happen, he'd be lucky to get a hand on the ledge with how dense he was with his new muscles. 

With a shrug, he shook off his thoughts and focused on drawing his magic, crouching low to center his weight. He cast aard underneath himself, kicking off as the blast of air began. He lifted off, his body launched from the ground like a geyser in a hot spring. Geralt had just enough time to grin and look up toward his goal of the window before he realized, with horror, that his trajectory was off. 

Eskel had heard the discharge of magic and air from the room, and  _ felt  _ the crash of Geralt's body into the wall, vibrations coming up from the floor below him. He dashed to the window to see the young witcher knocked flat on his back, with a rather large amount of blood flowing from his head. 

"Fuck, Geralt!" He called, jumping out the window and rolling to minimize the force of the impact. Geralt's limp body was not too far off, and he scrabbled on his hands and knees over to him. 

From this close, he could see that the external injuries were none too serious, Geralt had scraped up his forehead badly, but not deep enough that it wouldn't scab over and heal. Hopefully he didn't batter his brain. When Clovis fell off the pendulum last autumn, he knocked the back of his head and couldn't see for a week. And Varrin would kill Eskel for goading Geralt into yet another injury. 

Careful not to shake him, Eskel picked up Geralt's limp hand and squeezed. 

"Geralt, Geralt are you okay? Look, I'm sorry I dared you to do it. Can you wake up now?" His voice cracked, nervousness bleeding through as Geralt's eyes stayed still under their lids. 

Frustrated, Eskel crouched right by his friend's ear and took a deep breath. 

"WAKE UP!" 

Geralt shot up so fast he barely had time to move out of the way so their heads wouldn't knock together. Sitting up, Eskel looked at his eyes, slitted pupils dilated too wide for the bright day and unfocused.

"How are you feeling?" He asked in a softer voice. Geralt opened his mouth to say something, but then pitched forward. Eskel caught him just in time to get vomit directly into his lap. His stomach clenched in disgust.

"Oh fuck. Okay. I deserve this."

"'M sorry." Geralt's words were slurred as he slumped against Eskel. 

\--

When Vesemir heard the unmistakable sound of aard, followed by the solid  _ thunk _ of a body against stone, he sighed, and rested his book in his lap for a moment. A keep was a loud place to be, even in the summer with the full-fledged witchers out on the Path. Most noises could be attributed to rough-housing, so he listened close for the sound of laughter, or training to resume. When instead he heard "Geralt" and "wake up" he knew he had to intervene. Leaving the book face down on its page, he stood up and stepped outside, toward the sound.

What he saw was a shock, young Eskel was cradling a bleeding Geralt while covered in sick. These two got in more trouble than any pair had in decades, and it was getting old.

"What happened here, exactly?" He asked, looking around to check for the inevitable lie Eskel would spin. Studying the ground, he saw a spot in the grass where twigs and loose foliage had been cleared in a neat circle.  _ Aard against the ground? _ He mused. That would mean that the body was flung upward…

There, a stone block had been pushed in, with red smeared on it, only a yard below the window to the boy's room. What, had this idiot kid tried to fly? 

"It was my fault! I made him do it!" Eskel shouted, shushing and petting Geralt's hair when he groaned from the noise. Vesemir pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache coming on. 

"I don't know what  _ it  _ even is. We will discuss your punishment later, for now, help me get him to the infirmary." 

Eskel gave a brisk nod and slowly stood, the slime of this morning's breakfast sliding off his lap, but he barely noticed. He turned and pulled Geralt on to his back, tucking his arms around Geralt's thighs and leaning forward enough so the injured boy wouldn't have to hold on tight. It couldn't have been comfortable, even though Eskel was strong the angle would pinch at his spine, but the look of determination and worry on his face made Vesemir think twice about offering his help. Geralt mumbled and sluggishly lifted his arms around the boy's neck and Eskel smiled, small and relieved, and marched on. 

Those two were really something.

\--

It had only been a concussion, which though it hurt like...well like he had slammed his head into a wall, Geralt was thankful that it had healed quickly. 

Eskel had armory duty for a month, punished with the tedium of polishing swords and softening leather over bone for hours after dinner. It was dull but he did it happily; he had heard them debating separating the two of them down the hall from where Geralt lay sleeping a few days after the incident, and it had terrified him. For whatever reason, they had decided against it, as long as they adhered to their punishments. Eskel didn't mind, he would gladly work in the iron mine if it meant being able to stay roomed with his best friend. 

Geralt, once healed, was much less happy with his punishment of kitchen duty. He was decidedly terrible in the kitchen, lacking any passion for a blade in his hand that he couldn't parry with.

"It's wenches work!" He complained to Eskel one night, coming back to their room with his tunic covered in grease stains. 

"Yeah? Where're the wenches cooking for witchers on the Path then? Think they let 'em ride the horse?" 

The redhead pouted, crossing his arms.

"Well, no! But…" His face screwed up, not being able to think of a reply.

"Exactly. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some swords to polish." Eskel groaned as he got up, belly overfull from dinner. 

Geralt snickered into his hand. "Least  _ that's  _ something you have practice with."

"Ew! Don't listen then, you perv!" He huffed, but then smiled, forming the sign for aard and sent a controlled blast that knocked Geralt onto the bed. He saw his friend's wide eyes staring at him, but he just left with a grin on his face. 

\--

They had managed to avoid trouble after that, not wanting to risk being separated. It had worked until Geralt was taken for, what they were assured, was a brief test. 

Eskel didn't see his friend for a month. 

He could barely eat, he was so sick with worry, convinced they had done something terrible to him. Training was automatic and mindless. He didn't speak to any of the other trainees or so much as look them in the eye. He was caught in the space between mourning and searching, demanding answers that never came from the master witchers. There was a heavy, unbearable weight on him. The weight of Geralt's absence. 

The stone in the pit of his stomach did not lift when Geralt, ghostly pale, shaking, and glassy-eyed, stumbled into their room with not a single word. The roots of his hair were coming in snowy white, stark against his natural red. He collapsed and slept for days. All Eskel could do was watch him; chest rising and falling so slowly that the boy would be sure Geralt wasn't breathing, only to finally, finally watch him pull in another breath. 

\--

Geralt knew things had been different after his second round of the Trial of the Grasses, he...struggled a lot more now. Not in combat--he was now leagues ahead of his peers, thanks to this unnatural advantage--but in being a friend. 

Geralt felt, well, he wasn't really sure how he felt most of the time. Even after the first set of Trials, his emotions were always quick to surface; smiling, joking around, and bouts of adolescent rage came and went easily. He rarely cried before, but he could. He cried feeling the straps of Sad Albert tightening around him again. A single tear that slid from the corner of his eye, melting into the soft red hairs at his temple. 

Now, it was all different. Muted, jumbled, like his head was stuffed full of cotton and the real him was smothered deep inside. During some moments, he would be able to feel echoes of who he was, his normal reactions, but it was as if they couldn't come out. A pervasive feeling of  _ wrongness _ hung around him, and others certainly noticed, Eskel most of all. His lifelong companion was there, in front of him but seemingly unreachable.

Though he tried. For months the brunet tried to do everything he could to call his friend back to himself. He retold old jokes, punching up the dramatics for extra effect. Geralt would twist his mouth upwards, into a facsimile of a grin with none of the joy. He knew what Eskel wanted, what he wanted, but the pieces wouldn't connect. 

And it was harder the more desperate Eskel got. Every passing day the white roots took over more and more of Geralt's hair, a measurement of the time that passed while Eskel failed to connect with him. Trying to elicit happiness gave way to anger or irritation, slamming the door in Geralt's face, screaming at him to  _ get over this already, come on! _

One night, he saw Eskel shaking in his bed, could smell the salt of the tears collecting in his eyes. He wracked his mind, trying to call forth the genuine emotion he knew he would feel seeing his closest friend crying and defeated. He would be heartbroken, and want to comfort him. He couldn't get to the feeling, somewhere buried under all of the stuff in his head, but he could comfort. He sat on the bed, placing a hand on Eskel's shoulder. In the past, it would have been easy to stroke along it, to rub soothing circles into his back while he offered kind words. Now his pale hand sat there like a block of marble, the heavy feeling of empty action. Eskel turned, a spark of hopefulness in his wet eyes. As he met Geralt's, he saw the same mask of blank expression, and something within him boiled over. 

He had never hit someone so hard in his life as he hit Geralt that day. The force of his fist sent Geralt off the bed, and he was standing over him, nails digging into his palms hard enough to draw blood. Eskel saw, or he  _ wanted _ to see, a flash of fear in those empty eyes. It was gone before he could register it. 

He stopped trying after that.

\--

The mages told him that Geralt's feelings might never return, that Geralt had lived and not been physically damaged and that was better than what any other child had gotten. He was  _ lucky _ . 

"LUCKY?!" His voice ripped out of him before he could stop it. His whole body was shaking with rage. His hand whipped to point at the double doors, where assistant mages were looking over Geralt's body for interesting mutation effects. 

"You call that lucky?! He can't  _ feel _ anything! He can barely talk! You killed Geralt and, and you replaced him with a walking  _ corpse _ !" 

The mage had tried to soothe him, but it all felt sharp, mocking. How could anyone pretend this was okay when he had lost his best friend? The person who cared for him above anyone else? The person he  _ loved _ ? 

Eskel barely remembered casting igni, just the white-hot burn that he felt in his chest pushing outwards, engulfing the room in flash fire and glasses shattering as their contents were heated past boiling. The mage disabled him with a wave of his hand, sapping his magic from him quicker than a pair of dimeritium shackles could. He fell to the ground gasping, body heaving as he tried to take in air that had been sucked from the room by his fire. The mage intoned a spell, and the world went black.

\--

It was the only time he had ever been lashed. Eskel had gotten up to a lot of mischief, that was certain, but had always stopped short of actual destruction. Toeing the line didn't make him a favorite, but it did keep him from the more harsh punishments.

Now, he was feeling the sharp licks of pain up his back; only ten of them, a trifle for a young witcher, but each one echoed the pain inside him. He had no illusions about the master witchers and their mages--had never thought of them as kind. He saw the other boys die during the trials, in training, and the witchers not even bat an eye. But this, on top of the raw emptiness inside of him was too much. He didn't cry, kept his head bowed. A mage's assistant wiped an alcohol-soaked cloth over the wounds, more for punishment than care, and the witcher who delivered the blows stood over him. 

"Anything to say for yourself?" He asked, and his practiced indifference would have been cutting, had Eskel not known what true lack of emotion looked like. He looked up, chin jutting high toward the witcher.

"Yeah," his voice was rough but held steady, "I want to switch my room."

\--

He was given one day off from training, the whip having left gashes on his back that could not seal up right away. He used that day to pack up and drag all of his belongings to the furthest empty room. Their cohort was bigger than most at six boys, but the older trainee wing could hold up to twenty. All the rooms were similar, with two beds at the far corners and simple furniture with a single window opposite the door. 

This room had not had anyone stay in it for a long time, and dust prickled his nose as he dropped his bedding onto the right side bed. He always took the right side, because Geralt preferred the left. He looked at the empty bed across from his new one, regret welling up in him. He shook his head, that was over now, his best friend was gone. He couldn't torture himself by hanging on to the shell of who Geralt was.

His shirt was sticky with sweat and blood by the time he finished moving the last of his stuff, though he only bothered to set up the bare necessities. Training tomorrow would be rough enough as it was, since he went against his orders to rest. He opened the window, letting in the autumn breeze as he flopped face-first onto the bed. 

Eskel tried not to think, but his mind was buzzing with worry. What would he do now? He was always sociable with the other boys, but they weren't Geralt, didn't understand him like Geralt did (like Geralt  _ had, _ his mind corrected him). It was still years before he would be on the Path, and he would have to live seeing the ghost of his closest companion every day without anyone to speak to about it. He prepared himself to be alone, he would be once he was a full witcher anyway, he supposed. Better get used to it now. 

He wondered if Geralt would even notice he was moved out of the room, or if he would continue the same nighttime routine, unperturbed? He closed his eyes so tight he saw spots, willing away the thought of Geralt ignoring the space in their room where he had been. 

\--

Training that day had been a blur for Geralt, the clashing of swords so simplistic and trite with his new opponent. Clovis was an excellent fencer, but was just too unaccustomed to Geralt's fighting style and quick reflexes. His face betrayed no hint to his movements, and the young man was wiping back his sweat-slicked ginger hair only a few minutes in. 

"Melitele's sacred drawers Geralt, don't you want to slow down a little? The day is young." He panted. Geralt hummed as a response, but did slow down. At this pace, it was even easier for his body to take over while his mind wandered. 

He was turning over the memories of the previous few days incessantly. Eskel hitting him, the taste of copper on his tongue as his friend stood over him with a rage in his eyes he had never seen before. Usually, Eskel was gentle to a fault, unless he was in combat he wouldn't dare strike harder than a playful push. But that night, he looked for the life of him like he could kill Geralt. It was so sudden, so extreme, that Geralt felt afraid. 

He  _ felt _ , for the first time in months he had sensation in his heart and mind, and it was fear. Cold and paralyzing, and better than the cotton-numbness he had become accustomed to. He had craved to feel it again even as he crawled back from Eskel, climbing onto his bed and turning his back to him. 

And two days later Eskel had set a good portion of the infirmary on fire, if only for a short time. The screaming, the incredible heat that radiated through the stone walls, and subsequent shouting of the adults trying to organize and take account of what happened, it sent bolts of fear through him again. Something bad was happening to Eskel, and it was his fault. Because he couldn't just go back to how he was, and now he was just  _ numb _ all the time and his own friend didn't want him anymore. 

Clovis cried out when Geralt knocked the sword from his hand with a harsh pommel blow. It wasn't often a move used when the young witchers trained together, only against instructors, because of the likelihood of crushing the small bones in the hand. Geralt looked dazed, just staring as he gripped his hand in agony. 

"What the fuck is your problem?!" Clovis growled from his kneeling position. Then, to himself, "Gods, that hurts." 

"I, uh, I'm sorry, it was an accident." Geralt tried to apologize, but his voice sounded far away, quiet and cold in his ears. 

Vesemir jogged over to the two pups, looking between Geralt's face and Clovis' purpling hand. He sighed, helping the ginger-haired witcher to his feet. 

"Come on, let's get this looked at." He said in a soothing voice. He stared sidelong to Geralt, who seemed almost flushed beneath his deathly pallor. 

"And you, I don't want to see you for the rest of the day. Dismissed." 

Geralt stood there for a moment, giving a delayed nod before walking off toward the keep. Vesemir had half a mind to follow after him, try to get the stoic kid to open up, but Clovis was moaning in pain as his hand swelled. Geralt would be alright, he told himself. Though he wasn't sure he believed it. 

\--

Geralt, unsure of what to do, went back to his room. Eskel had come in early this morning after his punishment but refused to even look at him. He smelled blood and antiseptic, but was too worried about pushing his friend even further away to do anything. 

Opening the door, it was as if someone had erased Eskel's existence from it. The right side was completely stripped of his personal effects; mattress bare and outlines of dust on the bedside table where he kept his bestiary and decorative drinking horn. Even his trophy from their foglet hunt this past spring had been removed from the back of their door.

Fear ran through him again, his mind recounting the morning's events. The only time a trainee's stuff disappeared here was when they died. Had Eskel been more injured than he thought? He didn't smell sickly, just hurt. But then, where was he? 

After so long without feeling anything, Geralt wasn't able to tolerate the panic rising in his chest, his breath coming in short pants as his mind cycled through ways Eskel could have died in the short hours it had been since he had last seen him. He felt dizzy, adrenaline making his slow heartbeat tick up. He stepped into the hall and noticed a scent. Clean bedding mingling with Eskel's sweat seemed to be trailing down the hall to the far end. Had they moved his stuff? Geralt's feet were moving before he made the conscious decision to. 

The last door on the right-hand side of the corridor is where the trail ended. He reached, hand hovering over the doorknob for a moment in trepidation. What would he see? Is Eskel okay? 

Before he could touch the door, a golden quen shield bubbled over it. He jumped back, startled.

"Eskel?! Eskel are you in there?" His voice sounded oddly flat in comparison to the fear he was feeling, but he couldn't be bothered to think about that.

"Go away." Came Eskel's muffled intone.

"What's wrong? Why did they move you over here? Are you hurt?" It was more than he had been able to speak in almost two months, but now the words came quickly. Eskel speaking was good; the shield over the door was not. 

" _ I  _ moved myself over here. I can't live with you anymore. Go away." He could hear the boyish crack in Eskel's otherwise deep voice through the door. Geralt raised a fist to beat on the translucent shield, but it sent him back with a zap of electricity. An experienced tactic, unsurprising that he would know it, but to use it against Geralt? 

"I don't understand!" Geralt called, swallowing around the lump in his throat, only to feel sick. He heard shuffling behind the door, the unsteady heartbeat and panting growing louder. The door opened, but the shield remained. 

He felt (he  _ felt _ , gods, again) alarmed by what he saw. Eskel looked a mess, shirt tinged brown with drying blood from reopened wounds, his face pale and eyes puffy. Past the wall of stale sweat, he smelled the stress and sadness, a terrible and bitter mix. He stepped right to the edge of the shining quen, to be as close as possible. His fingers twitched by his sides with the desire to reach out, both to comfort and to be comforted. 

"Eskel…"

The brunet met his eyes for a brief moment before looking away.  _ Guilt _ . 

"I can't," he took a shuddering breath. Always the bulkier of the two, Eskel looked smaller, more fragile somehow. "I can't watch you like this any longer, Geralt. You aren't my friend anymore, you're just--just whatever it is they made you." He shook his head, greasy hair hanging even lower in front of his eyes. "It hurts too much. Please, just go." 

He didn't give Geralt time to respond, though he was too stunned by the words to do so, before he shut the door in his face. The white-haired boy just stood, stunned and overwhelmed by the sudden onslaught of feeling that the mutations had tried to suppress. If he had been able to put words to the surge,  _ grief _ would have been the primary emotion. The sort of loss one might feel in the face of the death of a loved one, Geralt felt then. And he was woefully unprepared for it. 

He threw himself at the shield, uncaring of the shocks, and beat his fists on it, desperate to break it so that he might be able to reach Eskel. He was calling out, yelling his name, pleading, unable to tell one from the other. His hands and chest stung from the discharges of electricity that passed through them as he connected with the shield over and over, and it was not cracking. 

A large bolt sent him back, singeing the hair on his bare forearms. Eskel's voice was a roar from the room, wounded as though he had been the one struck. 

" **GO!** " 

Geralt felt like ice water had been flushed through his veins. He staggered backward until his back met the stone wall opposite the door. He didn't understand, he didn't understand anything. Why he couldn't feel for months, only to have it suddenly lifted. Why Eskel had set the infirmary on fire. Why he said it hurt to see Geralt like this, when them being separated clearly hurt  _ so much worse _ . 

His head was spinning in a way it hadn't since Eskel tried to get him to aard up to their bedroom window. Gods, that wasn't even a full season ago but felt like an age. A time when they were still friends. 

A jolt of realization went through him. Had Eskel's window been open? He couldn't break the quen, not with the force the young witcher was putting into it. But if he could get in there, say something,  _ anything _ , maybe Eskel would listen.

He didn't wait around to consider the matter any further, rather, he took off down the corridor and then the stairs. He was outside below the rooms in only a moment. As Geralt passed their shared room, now just  _ his _ , he could see under the window the reminder of his error last time. That fading brown stain on an indented stone from the force of his head plowing into it. Hopefully that wouldn't happen again, Eskel might just say ' _ serves him right' _ and let him stay passed out in the dirt. 

But he's learned from his past mistake, or so he hoped. Instead of a stationary launch, he would take a running start and use the extra force to push off. 

Geralt found a spot that gave him a few meters of run-up, took a breath, kneeling down into a sprinter's pose. He tried to calm his worried mind and just focus on getting  _ to _ Eskel. The rest would come later. 

He gave himself a count and took off, covering the distance he gave himself with ease. He cast aard down toward the ground behind him as he ran, and pushed off in time with the discharge of energy. 

He was up! Unlike last time, he kept his eyes trained to the open window above him as he rapidly approached it. 

The landing was not as smooth as he had hoped for. To squeeze through the open window, he had to tuck into a ball, and couldn't get his feet under him in time to avoid sprawling onto the floor. He sat up, turning to face Eskel's direction while ignoring the minor spinning the room was doing. 

His sudden entry had, of course, startled Eskel, who was slumped on the far corner of his bed. The quen on the door broke with his concentration. His eyes were wide, but he stalled, said nothing. Geralt took the opportunity.

"Please, don't kick me out!" The emphatic plea rushed out of him, hands raised in surrender. 

"How did you do that?" Eskel asked, muted in disbelief. 

"I--what? The jump?" Geralt's brow scrunched in confusion. "I did the aard thing you tried to show me a while ago." Considering their interaction just minutes before, this was the most unexpected, mundane conversation. He still felt raw from his fear, but he was eased by Eskel not lashing out again. 

He still jumped near out of his skin when Eskel barked a laugh, sitting up on the edge of the bed to get a better look at Geralt. 

"I made that up, just wanted you to piss yourself off trying." He shook his head, "But you had to go and find a way to do it anyway." 

Eskel's laugh had always been infectious, it was deep and belly-bouncing and left him gasping for air. Geralt felt his face split into a genuine smile. Eskel froze.

"You're smiling."

Geralt's face hurt from how big his grin became. 

"I am!" 

"How?"

Geralt stood, sat at the foot of the bed to give Eskel space. 

"I think, I think you knocked it into me. Or out of me? I have been feeling again since you hit me." His voice had some of its natural cadence again. 

Eskel flitted through several emotions at once: relief, joy, guilt, and sadness cycling rapidly over his boyish face. 

"I'm sorry. For hitting you." His head hung as he picked at his nails. Geralt moved a little closer, hesitantly reached with his left hand to grasp Eskel's right. He gave a gentle squeeze even as it sat limp in his grip. 

"I don't want an apology. It hurt, but you made me feel again. I'd let you punch me a hundred times for that gift." Eskel picked up their joined hands and squeezed tight, looking up at him in distress. 

"I could never! I was just so angry." Geralt was going to reassure him, but the young witcher kept going. "I thought, I thought you were  _ gone. _ I tried so hard, but it was like you didn't live in your body anymore. And I was mad. At the witchers and mages for doing this, at you for not being able to be like you were. But I was most mad that I," His voice was growing thick, his eyes welling, "that I couldn't help you." 

Geralt took his free hand and held the back of Eskel's head, drawing his own in close until their foreheads were pressed together. He had seen some of the older witchers do this in greeting, sharing breath and embracing each other. He wondered if it was his sudden return of emotion that made the simple action feel intense. His heart thawed and swelled in his chest, coming to life at the contact. He looked into Eskel's shining eyes, lashes spiked with unspent tears, and massaged his scalp with his fingers. 

"You helped. You helped me so much. No one else would have done what you did for me." His voice was soft, barely above a whisper, breath ghosting over Eskel's lips. The tears finally spilled over, and Eskel released his hand to pull him into a hug, heads still pressed together. 

"I missed you." He whispered, eyes sliding closed. 

"I missed you, too. I think I'm coming back, now." Relief poured like boiling water though Geralt, seeming to wash away the remains of cotton webbing in his mind. 

\--

If the old wolf was honest, he was dreading training today. Down to five with Clovis unable to wield a sword until his middle finger mended, he figured Geralt would have to train with him. And that meant having to watch yet again as Eskel looked at him with miserable longing. The two were to be separated following Eskel's lashing the other day, something that saddened him. Though the young witchers had been twin terrors in the keep, seeing their childish joy had reminded him of the human part of himself. 

Until they put Geralt through more Trials. 

He felt bad for the pups. He had seen what Eskel, the Dragon as they now called him, had done to the infirmary. He couldn't blame him, not after seeing the intense change in Geralt. Flat affect, no spark of joy in his eyes. Eskel near hysterics trying to get the white-haired witcher to emote in even the slightest way. It wasn't right, what they had done. And it wasn't right that they punished Eskel for his rage. 

But a witcher had to be impartial. And with two powerful trainees, punishment kept them in line. Or so he told himself. 

So when the two came into the training yard, he was surprised to notice an incredible shift from the past few months. Eskel walked out first, with Geralt trailing behind like a shadow, face set with the protective determination one might have before battle. When Eskel handed him the dull-edged training sword, the brunet was smiling. Miraculously, after a few moments, Geralt smiled back. 

The two selected a corner of the yard and began footwork without being asked, Eskel bouncing on the balls of his feet as he watched his companion ready his stance. They looked so much like the boys they were months ago. Vesemir had a choice, he could separate them as he was directed to, or he could ignore it. Most likely, he would get a miserably long lecture if he left them. 

"Gardis!" He called Eskel's assigned training partner, a cheeky dark-haired wolf. 

"Sir!" He responded, jogging over to him and giving a mock salute. 

"Put your arm down. You'll be training with me today." 

"But, I thought…" the young witcher trailed off as his eyes caught sight of the two in the corner, whooping and hollering as they clashed and parted with practiced synergy. He chuckled quietly to himself. 

"Okay, sir. I see." Gardis turned to retrieve a training sword of his own. Vesemir afforded himself a private smile, watching the two boys learn to play again. 

He hoped they don't make him regret this too much. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! this was a ton of fun to write and you can see how the prompt got out of hand, but I brought it back. Please let me know what you think!!


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